Global Diversity, Equity & Inclusion: Elevating Voices and Driving Action with Accountability

At McDonald’s, we recognize that our impact is greater than the 65 million people who visit us daily, the 2.2 million people who work in McDonald’s brand restaurants around the world and over 8,000 employees who work in our corporate offices. 

Recently, the issues of prejudice and systemic racism have been brought to the forefront, causing a reckoning and demand for action that is long overdue. The public outcry has elevated and renewed our attention and deep responsibility to make changes that drive equitable opportunity for all. 

While this is a moment of anger and sorrow, it must also be a moment of determination – that we will do our part to fight systemic racism and to fight discrimination in all forms.

Guided by our values, we are committed to being better allies, better sponsors, and better leaders to create a future where equality and fairness and opportunity aren’t just goals but the lived experience of every single person in our communities.  

We also have to acknowledge that some people in our own System feel like they haven’t been given a fair opportunity. We’ve got to face up to that fact and do better.

Our Global Aspiration

We have been working diligently to look at what challenges - seen and unseen - are at the root of any barriers to opportunity; in a system that operates in nearly 120 markets with rich diversity in each, it will take time to get this right. We have taken intentional steps to listen to employees in all facets of our business. We have set up a global advisory council with senior leaders representing all areas of our system and we are building out specific actions to ensure we not only elevate all voices, but that we drive action and accountability throughout.

Through this process we have aligned on a global aspiration that McDonald's will use our influence and scale to accelerate meaningful and overdue societal change for our employees, franchisees, suppliers, customers, and communities. Moving forward, we will hold ourselves accountable to:

• Represent the diverse communities in which we operate
• Accelerate cultures of inclusion and belonging
• Dismantle barriers to economic opportunity

Underscored by our values, our global aspiration represents a step change in how we view equitable opportunity across our system and our role in catalyzing it for all.

Aspiration in Action

In support of this effort, and aligned with our aspiration, some of the global actions we will pursue include the following: 

• Addressing any hiring bias and reducing any barriers for underrepresented populations in order to increase the diversity of our leadership to represent the communities we serve.
• Enhancing efforts to attract and recruit diverse franchisees
• Reducing any barriers for diverse suppliers to enter the McDonald’s system and increasing our spend in this space
• Auditing our advertising and restaurant experiences to ensure they reflect the needs of our customers

These actions and others will be underscored by a Mutual Commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. This is a pledge that asks anyone who does business with McDonald’s to make and be accountable to progress across diversity, equity and inclusion in their own business. We recognize that McDonald’s has the opportunity to accelerate change in our business and in industries beyond our own by strongly encouraging those that work with us to build in the talent pipelines, create the infrastructures and cultures to support increased representation, stronger cultures of inclusion and closing equity gaps. 

The Path Forward 

Our commitment more than ever is to lean into progress over perfection, to share our journey as we travel through it. Therefore our global aspiration has to be about more than numbers, it is about transforming the way McDonald’s does business. 

To accomplish our global ambition, we must prioritize precision over speed.

We are mid-way through a substantive review of the challenges and opportunities that exist across McDonald’s business in order to create meaningful, measureable and actionable changes. 

What’s important throughout all of this is transparency, even when we do not have all of the answers. Once we have completed this process and have targets in place, we plan to share our specific commitments and progress to achieve them annually. 

At McDonald’s, integrating this global ambition into our long-term business strategy is critical to our success. Simply put, when we support each other, we all win. We look forward to sharing more details of our plans and time-bound commitments in the coming weeks.